Storms and torrential rain hit Medway. Flooding occurs

Kent has been enduring some very warm temperatures for a while now with a cold front expected to make it's own arrival into the heat in situ over England, and more notably the South-East of England.  Click the links below to see pictures relating to the chase report or click here for the full album.

The Met-Office had issued a yellow alert for rain with the following text

Issued at: 1129 on Mon 28 May 2012 Valid from: 1500 on Mon 28 May 2012 Valid to: 2300 on Mon 28 May 2012 : Isolated thunderstorms later in the afternoon and during the evening have the potential to generate torrential downpours. The public should be aware of the risk of local flash flooding, especially in urban areas.

The charts forecasting today's potential did indeed show suggest moving thunderstorms which provided the risk of localised flooding as per this link.

While at Strood, convection was beginning to increase as we can see in this photo and by the time I got to Gravesend, found my vantage point and began to work out my next steps, it was apparent storms were already due in the distance.  Photo 1 looking between Essex and Dartford direction & Photo 2.

Thunder was heard often and with rain in the distance I made a move back to Gravesend town centre. Rainfall was not too bad and further weak rumbles were poor so headed back to Strood in hope of getting ahead of the storm once again for a second round. And I'm glad I did!

Intense torrential downpours were observed locally with the rainfall monitoring equipment at Kent-Weather HQ registering a rate of 100mm and this was clearly visible on radar. Regular thunder and lightning was also reported right across Medway.

A video from Higham was sent into BBC South-East which you can see below showing flooding within the senders local area: http://www.twitvid.com/FPKNQ

Video collection from myself of the storm chase: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDTpfTiR0_Q

Statistics for this event suggest the amount of lightning recorded (all variaties - IC/CC/GG, both +/- ) equate to 2750 over a 350 mile radius (Credit to HeadCorn weather for the stats) with NetWeather's own ATD lightning detection showing 391 possible "Cloud-to-Ground" (CG) observed detections. 

Recorded rainfall rate